The Carnivorous Carnival

'What a nice offer!' the reporter cried. 'You're a very generous person, Count Olaf!'

'Let's see Madame Lulu throw Beverly and Elliot into the pit!' cried the pimpled man, and everyone cheered again. As mob psychology began to take hold, the crowd seemed to be as flexible as it was excited, and they gave the fortune-teller an enormous round of applause as she nervously took Count Olaf's place on the plank. The piece of wood teetered for a moment from the weight of so many people standing on it, and the older Baudelaires had to struggle to keep their balance. The crowd gasped in excitement, and then groaned as the two disguised children managed not to fall.

'This is so exciting!' squealed the reporter. 'Maybe Lulu will fall in, too!'

'Yes,' Esmй snarled. 'Maybe she will.'

'I don't care who falls in!' announced the pimpled man. Frustrated by the delay in violence and sloppy eating, he tossed his cold beverage into the pit and splashed several lions, who roared in annoyance. 'To me, a woman in a turban is just as freaky as a two-headed person. I'm not prejudiced!'

'Me neither!' agreed someone who was wearing a hat with the words CALIGARI CARNIVAL printed on it. 'I'm just eager for this show to finally get started! I hope Madame Lulu is brave enough to push that freak in!'

'It doesn't matter if she's brave enough,' the bald man replied with a chuckle. 'Everyone will do what they're expected to do. What other choice do they have?'

Violet and Klaus had reached the end of the plank, and they tried as hard as they could to think of an answer to the bald man's question.

Below them was a roaring mass of hungry lions, who had gathered so closely together below the wooden board that they just seemed to be a mass of waving claws and open mouths, and around them was a roaring crowd of people who were watching them with eager smiles on their faces. The Baudelaires had succeeded in getting the crowd more and more frantic, but they still hadn't found an opportunity to slip away in the confusion, and now it seemed like that opportunity would never knock. With difficulty, Violet turned her head to face her brother, and Klaus squinted back at her, and Sunny could see that her siblings' eyes were filled with tears.

'Our luck may have run out,' she said.

'Stop whispering to your heads!' Count Olaf ordered in a terrible voice. 'Madame Lulu, push them in this instant'

'We're increasing the suspense!' Klaus cried back desperately.

'The suspense has been increased enough,' replied the man with the pimpled chin impatiently. 'I'm getting tired of all this stalling!'

'Me, too!' cried the woman with dyed hair.

'Me, too!' cried someone else standing nearby. 'Olaf, hit Lulu with the whip! That'll get her to stop stalling!'

'Just one moment, please,' Madame Lulu said, and took another step toward Violet and Klaus. The plank teetered again, and the lions roared, hoping that their lunch was about to arrive. Madame Lulu looked at the elder Baudelaires frantically and the children saw her shoulders shrug slightly underneath her shimmering robe.

'Enough of this!' the hook-handed man said, and stepped forward impatiently. 'I'll throw them in myself. I guess I'm the only person here brave enough to do it!'

'Oh, no,' Hugo said. 'I'm brave enough, too, and so are Colette and Kevin.'

'Freaks who are brave?' the hook-handed man sneered. 'Don't be ridiculous!'

'We are brave,' Hugo insisted. 'Count Olaf, let us prove it to you, and then you can employ us!'

'Employ you?' Count Olaf asked with a frown.

'What a wonderful idea!' Esmй exclaimed, as if the idea had not been hers.

'Yes,' Colette said. 'We'd like to find something else to do, and this seems like a wonderful opportunity.'

Kevin stepped forward and held out both his hands. 'I know I'm a freak,' he said to Olaf, 'but I think I could be just as useful as the hook-handed man, or your bald associate.'

'What?' the bald man snapped. 'A freak like you, as useful as me? Don't be ridiculous!'

'I can be useful,' Kevin insisted. 'You just watch.'

'Stop all this bickering!' the pimpled man said crankily. 'I didn't visit this carnival to hear people argue about their work problems.'

'You're distracting me and my other head,' Violet said in her low, disguised voice. 'Let's get off this plank and we can all discuss this matter calmly.'

'I don't want to discuss things calmly!' cried the woman with dyed hair. 'I can do that at home!'

'Yes!' agreed the reporter from The Daily Punctilio. ''PEOPLE DISCUSS THINGS CALMLY' is a boring headline! Somebody throw somebody else into the lion pit, and we'll all get what we want!'

'Madame Lulu will do it, please!' Madame Lulu announced in a booming voice, and grabbed Violet and Klaus by the shirt. The Baudelaires looked up at her and saw a tear appear in one of her eyes, and she leaned down to speak to them. 'I'm sorry, Baudelaires,' she murmured quietly, without a trace of accent, and reached down to Violet's hand and took the fan belt away from her.

Sunny was so upset that she forgot to growl. 'Trenceth!' she shrieked, which meant something along the lines of, 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself!' but if the fake fortune-teller was ashamed of herself she did not behave accordingly.

'Madame Lulu always says you must always give people what they want,' she said grandly in her disguised voice. 'She will do the throwing, please, and she will do it now!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' Hugo said, stepping forward eagerly. 'I'll do it!'

'You're the one being ridiculous!' Colette said, contorting her body toward Lulu. 'I'll do it!'

'No, I'll do it!' Kevin cried. 'With both hands!'

'I'll do it!' the bald man cried, blocking Kevin's way. 'I don't want a freak like you for a coworker!'

'I'll do it!' cried the hook-handed man.

'I'll do it!' cried one of the white-faced women.

'I'll do it!' cried the other one.

'I'll get someone else to do it!' cried Esmй Squalor.

Count Olaf unwound his whip and flicked it over the heads of the crowd with a mighty snap! that made everyone cower, a word which here means 'cringe and duck and hope not to get whipped.' 'Silence!' he commanded in a terrible roar. 'All of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You're arguing like a bunch of children! I want to see those lions devouring someone this very instant, and whoever has the courage to carry out my orders will get a special reward!'

This speech, of course, was just the latest example of Count Olaf's tedious philosophy concerning a stubborn mule moving in the proper direction if there is a carrot dangling in front of it, but the offer of a special reward finally got the crowd as frantic as possible. In a moment, the crowd of carnival visitors had become a mob of volunteers, all of whom swarmed eagerly forward to finally throw someone to the lions. Hugo lunged forward to push Madame Lulu, but bumped into the box that the white-faced women were holding, and the three of them fell in a heap at the edge of the pit. The hook-handed man lunged forward to grab Violet and Klaus, but his hook caught in the cord of the reporter's microphone and became hopelessly entangled. Colette contorted her arms so as to grab Lulu's ankles, but grabbed Esmй Squalor's ankle by accident, and got her hands all twisted around one of Esmй's fashionable shoes. The woman with dyed hair decided she might give it a try, and leaned forward to push the elder Baudelaires, but they stepped to the side and the woman fell into her husband, who accidentally slapped the man with pimples on his chin, and the three carnival visitors began arguing loudly. Quite a few people who were standing nearby decided to get in on the argument, and gathered around to shout in each other's faces. Within moments of Count Olaf's announcement, the Baudelaires were in the middle of a furious mass of humanity, who were standing over the children, yelling and pushing and preying on themselves like monsters of the deep, while the lions roared furiously in the pit below.

But then the siblings heard another sound in the pit, a horrible crunching and ripping sound that was far worse than the roaring of beasts. The crowd stopped arguing to see what was making the noise, but the Baudelaires were not interested in seeing anything more, and stepped back from the terrible sound, and huddled against one another with their eyes shut as tightly as possible. Even in this position, however, the children could